Into the Pit: 015: Skinny Puppy – Live in Manchester – 08-August 2005

First, the bad points. Due to what appeared to be perhaps a lower turnout than expected, the gig got bumped from Academy 2 (the MDH) to Academy 3 (the Hop’n’Grape). So it was a little toasty. No support, either. Which made the next bit all the more annoying – a curfew at 2300, the band due on at 2130 – and they come on late. So we get the set cut short!

But really, with a gig that good I don’t think we could really complain all that much. Despite the smaller stage, all the mad theatrics were still there – ohGr’s costumes, a mock beheading during an outstanding Hexonxonx (with two black-clad figures coming on stage with really fucking big knives, then having the headdresses removed to reveal…George W. Bush and Tony Blair masks!); the blood gun, blood pellets being sprayed everywhere (see the last of the photos to see what I mean); vx Gas Attack, with ohGr inhaling something from a gas mask and then spraying it out over the crowd (It was yellow, and god knows what it was); the awesome half hunter/half animal costume for Human Disease (S.K.U.M.M.) and then loads of white powder being blown out over the crowd during Harsh Stone White…

Other than that? The set was totally different to last year, with a couple of real surprises in the set, and then also a few things that I wanted to hear last time and didn’t. Highlights song-wise were vx Gas Attack and Worlock, which in such a small venue sounded utterly immense, and of course Hexonxonx too.